Starmer rowing back on self ID - what do we think?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

The Times is reporting in its live politics feed that KS has explicitly said Labour will not push for self ID without public backing. I know not everyone can access their content so here is a copied n pasted version: what do you think?

Sir Keir Starmer has shifted Labour’s position on transgender rights as he said the bitter rows over Scotland’s Gender Recognition Bill showed the party must consider public opinion on the issue.The leader of the Labour Party has previously insisted it was committed to updating the Gender Recognition Act to introduce self-identification for transgender people.However, in a significant shift in Labour’s policy, he said the backlash over the SNP’s gender reform bill had made him think again. The SNP passed legislation this year that would make it significantly easier for people to acquire a gender recognition certificate and reduced the minimum age for doing so to 16. The bill was blocked by the UK government.Starmer said: “I think that if we reflect on what’s happened in Scotland, the lesson I take from that is that if you’re going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you.

“And I think that’s a very important message and I think that’s why it’s clear that in Scotland, there should be a reset of the situation.”

I can't fathom why anyone thinks this is positive.

It's a crumb, nothing more and frankly we deserve better than KS essentially saying we still think we are right about self id but have belatedly realised that the public aren't buying it.

I cannot and will not vote for a party that is captured by this ideology and they are still captured.

If you consider the many statements from senior MP's (some of which are posted below) there's a hell of a lot to row back from here.

I didn't leave the Labour Party, I was, like many other women, hounded out and they couldn't slam the door behind me fast enough.

They want me back as a voter, well this isn't going to cut it and I'm so over the concept that I should put this issue to one side in favour of "more important" concerns.

The LP still has a lot of reflecting to do after the chaos of the Corbyn/Momentum years and whilst some progress has been made it's still has a fundamental attitude problem in respect of a misplaced intellectual snobbery and sense of superiority over the electorate.

This latest from KS is just another example of this patronising positioning of "we know best".

Just looking at the way Rosie Duffield is treated by fellow MP's tells you everything you need to know.

Hmmm, I'll defer to judge judy. Her verdict on Kiers latest utterance...

I think he is trying to tread a line between right and left more generally to hit some centrist ground, not piss off the press to greatly and try and win the election. Though the purpose of a Labour government not supporting on the picket lines I do not know.

I think he would side with whoever he thought would win him the next election tbh. Obviously I'd rather a leader who wouldn't consider trashing women entirely for a win, but we do need the Tories out imo. If Labour can be persuaded to change tack I'd be very relieved.

I like Judge Judy. Especially her favourite phrase of "How do you know teenagers are lying? Their mouths move". Just change teenagers to Starmer.

Not convinced.

"Listening to the public" hmmm, which public would that be? Women's groups and voices have an uncanny knack of being ignored in these matters.

"Bringing the public with you" to me sounds dangerously close to being educated on how our current thinking is wrong/bigoted/transphobic.

No thank you. Still not got my vote

For me, the recent treatment of Rosie Duffield is the absolute clincher that Starmer is not going to stand up to TRAs in his party. He didn't even need to wade into the actual debate - he could just have stood up for the right of Labour MPs to disagree with each other and to advocate for women's rights in general. But he did nothing - either while she was being harassed in Parliament, or afterwards.

KS faced down the anti-Semites in his party: he is capable of taking a stand when he wants. He has done nothing to defend women from misogynists. So what does that tell you?

The reason why this is a single issue for me has gone beyond self-id now.
Labour by their behaviour of ejecting GC women, refusing to listen to women's concerns, prioritising men's wants over women's, not supporting Rosie Duffield, etc., have shown how deeply misogynistic they are to the core. As a woman, that's unforgivable to me.
The speed at which they were willing to change laws for a small group of men who demanded it when women have been shouting for years about VAWG, and other issues that affect women and getting nowhere tells me everything I need to know about Labour and how they view the rights of women and girls.

This is exactly the thing. The silence around this subject is taken for positivity and agreement

I work in a role where I cant really speak freely about what I think. My colleagues who feel the same, also speak in hushed jokey tones with each other knowing that we darent actually say what we want to say/the truth. We have to be careful about who's around when this happens.

So I see on here when people talk about various public sector workers, we are lumped in with people who believe in all this, or push this for children when it couldnt be further from the truth. But it would be assumed we would be in agreement with it and therefore would be part of the group or part of the public that would agree with it.

People live in an echo chamber so hear or assume agreement
Others who arent really affected by it/havent given it much thought are assumed to agree, they're not going to shout loudly against it
Others who feel they should accept it because everyone else is and they think its the right thing to agree with, so agree with it

thats how this ideology is gathering pace and the perception is that the public are ok with it

Don't believe him.

"...the lesson I take from that is that if you’re going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you."

Starmer is simply saying stuff, stuff that he thinks will make worried voters drop their guard.

"Oh, it's ok, he has seen sense and will bypass the crazyness" he wants us to think. "We are safe, phew!"

NO. Look at the quote. He said "... the lesson I take from that is that if you’re going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you." He did not say he was wrong to be committed to updating the Gender Recognition Act to introduce self-identification for transgender people. He does not say that at all.

I believe he thinks the reform was just not convincing enough and he can take his time and then once elected do it "right" unlike Sturgeon. I think he can FOTTFSOFATFOSM until he addresses Rosie's and other women's concerns, and spits out that kool aid. I mean, he was never a true believer, l'm pretty sure. It was just politically expedient for him to embrace the borg for those votes he is told he'll get.

Of course MissLucyEyelesbarrow I respect your position.

The press aren't going to leave this. Most Labour MPs sound like drivelling idiots when asked what a woman is and so this issue will haunt them. The women they suddenly want to vote for them are thoroughly pissed off and don't trust them.

They're going to have to come up with some real changes that are coherent and make sense - otherwise they'll be repeatedly hammered. Hand waving this away won't work.

I don't like the way this is phrased.

I want our leaders to uphold women's and girl's rights unconditionally. Not because of public opinion.

Opinion is the problem here. It's facts and logic that are important.

I very much sympathise about not being able to speak out in your workplace. That’s shocking actually.

Do you not think that public discourse outside of Westminster is gradually turning around though?

Three things I have randomly seen in the past couple of days while not specifically searching for content relating to GRA:

• a podcast by ???? on how JK Rowling has been unjustifiably vilified
• Netflix quietly withdrawing a kiddies cartoon about a transsexual whale (or something?)
• world athletics has banned transgender women from competing in elite female competitions

It’s by no means enough but it’s an improvement that at last it’s being discussed and debated again on media platforms. There’s so much more to be done but it’s like turning around a huge steamer. Terrifyingly slow at the front but the back end is slowly catching up.

From Starmer's lips to the divine spaghetti monster's ears.

Let's see whether 'The Labour Women's Declaration' are permitted a stall at this year's conference, for a start.

To my mind he's saying he still wants to amend the GRA in favour of Self Id - but wants 'public approval' for it. Well, how do you reliably measure public approval without a referendum?

Well if Party A is the Tories, the reality is that when they looked at the implications of the self-id policy they decided not to implement it. Liz Truss announced they were not taking it forward and then later Boris Johnson as PM started saying 'of course transwomen should not be in women's sport', Cass Review etc etc. What a relief!
'Conservatives for women' now claim to have 50% sitting Tory MPs signed up to the need to respect sex-based rights and child safeguarding. This doesn't mean the other half are full on TWAW just that they haven't signed up.
Theresa May was truly naive in being taken in by the 'gender identity ideologists' and should have known better but was likely somewhat distracted by all the Brexit shenanigans.

It is important if you have a sitting Tory MP to tell them that this is the issue you vote on. Focus their minds. The fact they allow free speech is what allows the gender woo people to also be Tories (Mordaunt, Miller etc). This is healthier than expelling people for wrongthink.

It seems to me that Starmer, has chosen not to focus on the 0.5% ( I think it was) who identified as trans in the latest census, but to concentrate on the 23% (in 2022, ons survey) who are struggling with rising inflation. And their predicament has only got worse since that ons survey.

It seems a reasonable and proportion step for him to take, given the circumstances, that he should take a step back from the 0.5%, so that it doesn't clog up the mechanism of government when, I hope, he becomes our next PM. By doing so, he frees up restricted parliamentary time to deal with issues like the rising cost of living, the crisis in our police force, when the very different crisis in our NHS.

I think this country has much more pressing issues that need addressing than this particular trans issue.

I know there are people on this forum who would strongly disagree with my view, and I expect their right to do so, but I also believe they are wrong.

@user1471453601 He can't focus on helping that 23% if he doesn't get into power, and as you can see from this thread alone, there are many people who won't vote for him because he values the trans 0.5% over the female 50% of the population.

So it's ok to erode the rights of 50% of the population to help 23%?

This idea that women should continually put other people first is the result of female socialisation.

It's not the job of women to pay the price here and we shouldn't be guilted into thinking we should.

We all know that yellow-bellied man has never at any time genuinely believed men can become women. He is only daring to defy the TRAs now that he sees he might get more grief if he doesn't. Pathetic then, and still is.

I agree and feel exactly the same way. There are too many homeless people and too many children living below the poverty line, too many families earning a minimum wage, even nurses, reliant on food banks. The level of child poverty is rising.

Lets get Labour in, let them
address some of these very urgent issues and then let’s tackle the GRA issue from within. You can’t expect women to be fully engaged in this very important fight when they are skipping meals because they only have enough money to feed their dc!

He’s cautious. That’s normal for a lawyer. He knows this issue is very polarising and and yes he is deliberately trying to tip toe through the debate. Maybe it is yellow bellied of him. Maybe it’s pragmatic. Once he has five years in power stretching ahead of him, he can then engage more fully. Atm, he is trying to be all things to all people to get in to power.

No thanks. It's my priority to vote for a government who doesn't deal with gender critical women like heretics.

Atm, he is trying to be all things to all people to get in to power.
Anyone who doesn't have the courage of their convictions doesn't deserve to be in power.

Watching Reeves on JHB today made me feel sick. Anyone who calls a double rapist she shouldn't be anywhere near power.

I was rendered speechless by her ignoring what J H- B said, and just ploughing on with what she'd been briefed on. I know that's what they do, but FFS that was so pathetic. Can they not see how badly it comes over?